For the event’s 13th annual season, Festival Director, Dr. Arpad Sölter and his international jury of movie experts have selected over 50 award-winning and critically lauded features, shorts and documentaries that showcase Germany’s multi-layered, vibrant and ever-evolving culture. This year’s programme includes extraordinary dramas, thrillers, comedies, romances, westerns, historical epics, coming-of-age tales and horror-movies, most of which will be screening as Australian premieres. There’s also a selection of films for the young and the young-at-heart that the whole family will relish, as well as designated school sessions and numerous special events in addition to the Festival’s screenings.

Launching the Festival in Sydney and Melbourne will be Banklady, an action crime-drama starring celebrated German actress Nadeshda Brennicke, who will be the Festival’s guest-of-honour at the Gala Opening Night events in both cities. Based on a true story,Bankladybrings to life the escapades of Gisela Werler, West Germany’s first female bank robber who made the transition from shy worker to notorious felon during her heyday in the 1960s.

Screening highlights of the 2014 Festival include:

EXIT MARRAKECH (Screening in Sydney, Melbourne & Brisbane)
Academy Award winning director Caroline Link (Nowhere in Africa) returns with an exploration of culture and personal discovery set in Morocco. A celebrated theatre director and his disaffected teenage son try to reconnect as they explore resentments and issues from the past. Prior to the film’s screening in Sydney and Melbourne there will be an exotic Morocco-themed “Oriental night”.

OH BOY (Screening in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane & Canberra)
Niko, a man in his 20s, is beset by a series of unexpected incidents that throw his well-ordered life into turmoil. Shot in black and white on the streets of Berlin, this debut feature by Jan-Ole Gerster has received numerous awards and highlights a side of German life that is not commonly represented in German film.

25 YEARS AGO – FALL OF THE WALL(Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane)
Journey through the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall via two fascinating documentaries and live music from Berlin cabaret pop band, The Beez.